Welcome to Hyperion Records, an independent British classical label devoted to presenting high-quality recordings of music of all styles and from all periods from the twelfth century to the twenty-first.

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Phantasm

Phantasm is an award-winning consort of viols founded in 1994 by Laurence Dreyfus; it has since become recognized as the most exciting viol consort active on the world scene today. The ensemble catapulted into international prominence when its debut album of works by Henry Purcell won a Gramophone Award for ‘Best Baroque Instrumental Recording’ in 1997. Since then, the consort has travelled the world over, performing in festivals and concert series in cities such as Vienna, Prague, Tokyo, Istanbul, Helsinki and Washington DC.

Recent engagements have included the Wigmore Hall Early Music series in London, Barcelona Early Music Festival, Bergen International Festival, Lufthansa Early Music Festival in London, Aldeburgh Festival, BRQ Festival in Finland, Hong Kong International Arts Festival, Vienna Resonances Festival, Stockholm Early Music Festival, Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels and De Bijloke Hall in Ghent. Phantasm’s fourteen recordings have won consistent praise, and several of them have received awards, including a Gramophone Award in 2004, for the music of Orlando Gibbons, which was also a finalist for ‘Record of the Year’. The ensemble’s first recording on the Scottish label Linn (named Gramophone’s ‘Label of the Year’ in 2010) was devoted to the consort works of the seventeenth-century composer John Ward and was a ‘Choice’ recording in BBC Music Magazine as well as a finalist for the 2010 Gramophone ‘Early Music’ Award. Its Linn recording of the complete consort music of William Byrd was awarded a Diapason d’Or, selected as ‘Disc of the Month’ by BBC Music Magazine and named a finalist for Gramophone’s best ‘Early Music Recording’ in 2011. Phantasm’s 2012 recording of William Lawes’s Consorts to the Organ was ‘Chamber Choice’ in BBC Music Magazine and was nominated for ‘Best Chamber Recording’ at the journal’s annual award ceremony in 2013.

Phantasm’s members (from Britain, Finland and the USA) have been based at the University of Oxford since 2005, when they were appointed Consort-in-Residence. In 2010, the ensemble began a new association as Consort-in-Residence at Magdalen College, where it performs, nurtures viol-consort playing among the students, and collaborates with Magdalen College Choir under its director, Daniel Hyde.